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Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Our 2016 Quilt Show is just a little over 6 months away, on 8th - 10th April, 2016, at Thornleigh Community Centre.

We are working on all aspects of planning the event, as well as making sure we have enough quilts finished to mount a good display for your enjoyment ... we will include quilts made for various purposes, some made from workshops over the last two years, some community quilts, and a small-quilt challenge.

Entries will be finalised in the new year, so exactly what will be on show is still a surprise all round ...

Sue C takes up fudging! She didthe maths, then in consultation with other quilters she threw them away, made her corner blocks over-sized and them back to fit, and is quite satisfied with the result.

When Elaine W found that these beautifully coordinated fabrics did not suit the purpose she intended them for, she made two quilts anyway, and generously donated them to our community project. The second one is being quilted. They are both warm, rich and appealing ... and very welcome.

A little de-stashing is going on - in preparation for our stall at next year's Quilt Show. Roslyn is coordinating the process and enjoying making up coordinating packs of fabric pieces of various sizes, culled from more than 30 individual stashes. Ideal for scrap quilting, to enhance your own scrap stash.

Friday, September 25, 2015

For the weekend - a small collections of links to interesting quilt and block pattterns that have been gathering in the 'drafts' folder ...Modern Quilt Studio - free patterns
Weeks Ringle and Bill Kerr have generously made nine of their patterns available as .pdf files to download.

Visit Unique Stitching's website to buy Modern Quilt Studio designer fabric and publications from within Australia (click on the 'Modern Quilting' tab).

Lindsay Connor, Craftsy (blog), 17th July 2014Whether you’re making a quilt for a father, husband, brother or son, we’ve rounded up some patterns and inspiration for quilts worthy of even the manliest man ...

Monday, September 21, 2015

Our monthly sewing day for our community quilts project was rather quiet and orderly, but there was actually a lot going on - eleven different quilts were worked on, and we continued with some preparation and packaging for the craft stall for our Quilt Show in April 2016, so a productive few hours!

We did some consulting on the raffle quilt for our 2016 Quilt Show, on which Miriam and Janice were doing some precision piecing for the final border. The quilt will be revealed in due course, and well ahead of the April 2016 Show date, but you can visit this post on Miriam's blogfor a preview.

We were too busy to take photos of everything ...

Susan and Elsa hand-stitched labels on three completed quilts, finished a binding, and pin basted the second of a pair of quilts, made by Elaine W for 'our' nursing home residents

Georgie made great progress on a very cute quilt featuring owls and coordinating prints - and there is enough fabric from the same range (generously donated by Georgie's sister) for at least one more. Some will be night owls, with a dark background.

Elaine B was finishing off the third of the five Pittwater quilts- she quilted it with organic wavy lines, and made up a scrappy binding from the fabrics used in the blocks.

The blocks for this quilt, upsized from Susan Myers ingenious Batiks Gone Wild design are very simple to make - laying them out in a non random design is a little more difficult, so Dawn enlisted some extra eyes for this step when she had made enough blocks for two quilts. This version has made good use of more of our extensive plaid stash. It is a a versatile pattern, and looks quite different with different sashing and centre fabrics, and value placement. We will make it again, perhaps in 'wilder' colours and prints as in the original, which uses vibrant batiks.

Sunday, September 20, 2015

Daphne is making this wonderfully graphic quilt in classes with Chris Jurd - she's contemplating something for the middle of the centre block, and additional borders. Great colours!

Elaine W is making two versions of Sarah Fielke's Millefioriquilt (from her book Hand Quilted with Love) for when her two little granddaughters return to Australia to live. The next one is more turquoise than pink - very pretty, but she needs to get a move on, she says.

Janice is not yet done with the beautiful possibilities of Liberty, linen and Miriam's little bag. The matching needle case is a lovely touch.

JoAnn and Marilyn sat next to each other last week, and compared hexagons - Marilyn's are 3/8", and Jo's are a giant 2 inches!

Lyn Lang's mosaic cat's coat colour is based on her beloved Josie - a very contented cat, just like this one made from Lorraine Carthew's mosaic applique pattern. A few more flower pieces will make up the total of 495 (each one numbered to make sure it goes in the right place).

Robyn L is embroidering this beautiful bird panel on linen ...

... and you can see that she knows exactly what she is doing with her needle and thread.

Robyn L is also making a pair of quilts for children, from squares cut from a panel - this one for a little girl ...

... including this very cool mermaid!

... and tiny applique's for the next one that is for a little boy.

Sue C is making an epic quilt with guidance from Margaret Sampson George. Each border is designed as you go, but Sue is a statistician, and to make sure each element will fit, she calculates sizes and angles. If you look very closely, you can see that this corner block required the square root of 28.125 (which is 5.3033 if you want to know)! Sue C does not fudge.

For another project, Sue C is making these colourful blocks full of curves.

And in a complete departure from her usual colour preference of the many hues and shades of blue, Sue C is using up the scraps from a recent pink quilt for a little girl as tumblers that will eventually be a new quilt for another child.

Jill was removing the papers from foundation pieced blocks for a baby quilt ...

... during the block making she came up with two new ways to muck up the very straightforward process - not making sure all the foundations are facing the same way when cutting them in stacks; and picking up two blocks together when trimming them to size, and just not noticing until too late ...

Saturday, September 12, 2015

It's been a big week for show and tell, we might have been out and about, shopping and visiting galleries, but we were sewing as well:

Let's work our way through this box of mismatched plaids,

we said. Let's put them with something unexpected, we said,something a bit 'wild'.

So Dawn found a fabric that her family said was much too feral

for them, and she and Susan put them together. Like this.

The border is the off-cuts from the 'wild' corners. That was

Susan's idea, and it's brilliant! It's off to a nursing home,

where a touch of 'wild' might be very welcome.

Let's hope we have a few plaids and wilds left, to do it again!

Lynette is one of our great 'finishers' - she often volunteers to take on a quilt top that has not been quite finished, or needs some major renovation to fit the needs of the groups we donate quilts to. This one is made from half of a collection of blocks made with equilateral triangles, and some loose triangles, that were going to be a pair of quilts for twins, until their great aunt did a U-turn on the design and made something completely different, with other fabric. There are enough triangles left for Lynette to make another child-sized quilt ... if she would like to.

The fifth Pittwater quilt - see this post for information on their name and origin and and here and here for the first two This one is made from the blocks remaining after the other four tops had been put together. The blocks were divided up to go together colour and size wise, but there was a little plundering swapping in and out, and a little adjustment was needed to 'lighten up' some of the remaining larger block borders here. The second and third quilts are nearly finished and they might appear at our monthly community sewing day next week.There is one large block left over - it is very pink and it just doesn't 'go' here - it is now in the orphan collection, and another lovely scrappy quilt will emerge from there, in time.

Children all over NSW have enjoyed quilts made by Robin W from her vibrant fabric collection - this little one is for a children's hospital bassinet, and will be donated through the Quilters Guild of NSW.

Thursday, September 10, 2015

This isn't the quilt Sue H originally planned for her granddaughter, but we're sure she was pleased with it. That's a lot of piecing, Sue!

... and the back made from the 'bits and pieces' is just as vibrant, so it's two-in-one.

A baby quilt for Pat's great-nephew - she started with the fox panel, adding borders and then making her first, and very successful attempt at hand quilting with Perle 8 wt thread. The fox's whiskers and tail details are just right.

Roslyn used this bag pattern for the first time, using Japanese linen. Those handles grip very well. When she makes it again, she plans to quilt the side panels.

Miriam calls her version of this design 'Pikelet'. She has adapted the technique for ease of construction and finish.

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

Susan M grew tired of having a number of projects that never seemed to quite get finished - she'd made good starts, so over a couple of weeks, she put her quilting mojo on, and got to work. She's really pleased with the progress she's made - two big finishes and one well on the way:

This quilt was driven by the Jinny Byer border fabric that Robin W passed on to Susan to 'do something' with. It then grew organically from the toile centre panel, and Susan was surprised to find what she had in her stash that 'went'. She had no intention of including orange, but with very little encouragement, she has used it very effectively.

This one is a break out into modern, for Susan - her interpretation of Kim Kight's Lucky Strikes - one of five free patterns issued by the Cotton and Steel fabric designers, to promote the release of their second collection. Susan is contemplating how she will quilt it to complement the modern design.

It is always good to see finished quilts from workshops - Susan's Jolly Stars began in Catherine Butterworth's workshop in March, on using acrylic templates for precision piecing. The contrasting value between the fabrics Susan has used make the most of the design - throwing the faux circles (all the lines are actually straight) into prominence. She was determined to finish it completely before the year was out - six months is a very good effort indeed, and will encourage those of us still lagging a little behind on this one ...

Monday, September 7, 2015

We headed south on our annual bus trip on Saturday, to take in Labours of Love at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery and Art Centre in Gymea, and the counterpoint of the contemporary Evolution, Change, Challenge exhibition at the same lovely venue (galleries, gardens, cafe), By chance we arranged the date enjoy the privilege of Kay Haerland's talk and trunk show of her life's work, making for a very substantive day of quilting appreciation.

Kay has now retired from teaching, but is in the process of making a series of DVD to pass on her skills and techniques - the first two are already available (visit Kay' website for details). We'll be ordering them for our library.

The Labours of Love catalogue alone is beautiful - excellent, large images of every quilt, with all the curatorial information - a copy is now in our library.

Do go if you have the opportunity - the contemporary quilts will be gone after tomorrow, but Labours of Love continues until 5th October.

Our day was bookended by shopping at Patchwork Plusin Miranda and Quiltsmith in Annandale, forming long but orderly queues for the registers at both. It takes skill and organisation for shops to cope with more than 30 customers descending all at once, and both welcomed us and looked after us efficiently. Lots of happy parcels came home with us.

Thanks to Georgie for organising such a good day - you set the benchmark high for your final event as workshop coordinator, Georgie. Thanks also to Phyl for keeping us in the right place at the right time, and Warren, our driver.

Tuesday, September 1, 2015

Jo-Ann's large modern half square triangle quilt top is made from a kit she bought at the Sydney Quilt Show. The feature fabrics are from the 'Paint' range designed by Carrie Bloomston and distributed by Windham Fabrics. It is very stiking, and we look forward to seeing it finished with Jo's expert quilting.

Margaret W has cleverly combined blocks made from two workshops with Anne Sommerlad, both using some of her Asian fabrics. Access to tables and many hands for basting is a great advantage of belonging to a quilt group!

Jill has made a second 'Sew Together' bag ...

... and thinks she is getting better at it.

Definitely not a quilt, but it might end up beneath one ... amongst a bag of fabric passed on to her by a friend of a friend, Dawn found a fine brushed cotton full length night dress, with all of the pieces cut out, and the yoke beautifully smocked. The pattern was not with it, so Susan enlisted experienced dressmakers in the group to advise on what goes where.